


Turning Saints Into The Sea

by nessa_j



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Implied/Referenced Cheating, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Past Barbara Gordon/Dick Grayson, Past Dick Grayson/Koriand'r, Slut Shaming, dick grayson needs a hug and also some therapy, jason's jealous hallucinations of dick grayson/artemis of bana-mighdall, mentioned dick grayson/catalina flores, mentioned dick grayson/miriam delgado, one sided jason todd/artemis of bana-mighdall
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-08
Updated: 2020-07-08
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:14:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,274
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25142968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nessa_j/pseuds/nessa_j
Summary: Following RHATO Annual #1Believing that Dick has slept with Artemis, Jason brings up some of Dick's past mistakes in a jealous rage. Only it turns out that Jason doesn't have the full story, and maybe Dick isn't the terrible person that everyone, including himself, believes him to be.
Comments: 12
Kudos: 215





	Turning Saints Into The Sea

**Author's Note:**

> Warnings:  
> discussion of past rape  
> discussion of cheating and infidelity  
> slut shaming
> 
> The panels from RHATO Annual #1 relating to the story can be found here:  
> https://comicnewbies.com/2017/08/30/nightwing-and-artemis-bonds/
> 
> Also I don't understand how DC timelines work.

Jason knows he’s being irrational. It’s just, no one can make him angry quite like Dick Grayson. Except maybe Bruce. And the Replacement. And the Demon Brat, and Roy when he’s in one of his moods. Okay, so maybe he’s just an angry person, sue him.

"For fucks sake, Jason! Just tell me whatever it is I've done to piss you off and get over it!" 

Oh right, Dick Grayson. Jason can’t believe he ever thought that they could get along. How could he have forgotten what a narcissistic, arrogant, self-righteous prick the other was? 

"Oh, I'm sorry that you're upset," Jason snarks. "Why don't you go see if Artemis will comfort you? I'm sure she'll be sympathetic to your plight."

Dick frowns for a second before his eyes widen with understanding. " _That's_ what this is about?" 

He knows they’ve attracted a bit of an audience with their shouting, Bruce, Tim, and Damian hovering awkwardly by the computers. Jason doesn’t care, they should know what type of person their precious Grayson really is.

"Yes! You selfish pig! You know how I feel about her, and you still went and slept with her," Jason rages. 

"Jason, I-" 

“Don’t even try to deny it! Anyone with eyes could see the way you two were all over each other.” 

Jason knows he’s being unfair. It takes two to tango after all, and it’s not like Dick would have had even the slightest chance if the Amazonian herself hadn’t wanted it. It just hurts that someone he had started to maybe consider as a brother would go behind his back and do something like this. That he had spent so much time getting to know Artemis and building a friendship (and hopefully the foundation for something more), and Dick could just waltz in and take what Jason had worked so hard for with zero effort. He knows he’ll never be able to compare against Dick, Bruce certainly drilled that into him from the get go, but it still hurts.

Oh well, he’s basically a pro at hiding hurt with anger at this point.

"Don't know why I expected any different, I already knew you were a cheating liar, figures that you would be a slutty fuckboy too. Yeah, that's right, Roy told me all about how you cheated on Kori, how you slept around with some floozy from an alternate future." Jason takes a vicious pleasure in the way Dick looks like he’s been gutted. Though the other has no right to look so betrayed, not when he’s the one who was in the wrong.

"Wait, you cheated on Kori?" Tim interjects. "Didn't you cheat on Barbara too? With that Tarantula chick?"

Dick flinches, but quickly schools his expression into something more neutral. "Little hypocritical, Tim, considering I definitely recall finding you and Steph making out while you were still dating Ariana," Dick snaps. 

Tim flushes with embarrassment, and scowls before storming out of the cave. 

"You cheated on Babs, too?" Jason scoffs with derision. “Guess it’s true, Dick Grayson really can’t keep it in his pants.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t talk about things you don’t understand.” Dick’s voice is tense and angry.

“Oh please, I think I understand pretty well. I understand that you’re a pathetic piece of shit who doesn’t care about anyone else as long as you can get your rocks off,” Jason shouts.

For a moment, it looks like Dick is about to take a swing at him, but he’s interrupted by Damian.

"Is it true, Grayson? Did you and Starfire break up because you were unfaithful?"

Dick flinches again. "It was one of several contributing factors, yes." 

"I don't understand. You are not these things that Todd has accused you of being, you are not disloyal like that," Damian argues. 

Dick takes a long pause before answering, and when he does, it’s surprisingly malicious. "Damian, you're eleven. What could you possibly understand about lust and desire? You barely even understand the concept of friendship."

Jason is surprised. He always knew Dick had a cruel streak, but he never expected the older man to turn it towards Damian of all people.

Damian gasps and quickly runs from the cave. Dick stares after him, his expression a mix of guilt and grim determination 

Bruce steps forward, frowning. “Dick.” 

"You gonna lecture me too, Bruce?" Dick scoffs. "That'll be rich, coming from you. At least I use protection when I'm out slutting around." 

Dick pushes past Jason, striding angrily over to his motorcycle and leaving the cave without looking back. 

Jason doesn’t hang around much longer either. He’d promised Alfred that he would help the butler organize the library, but he’s certainly not going to stay alone in the cave with Bruce. That’s just asking for another fight, and Jason isn’t sure he has the energy for two in one night.

He finds Alfred, Tim, and Damian in the kitchen, drinking tea. 

“Todd,” Damian acknowledges with a sniff. He’d obviously been crying if the red around his eyes is any indication. The boy practically worshipped Dick, and it had to have hurt to have his mentor speak so cruelly to him. 

“Master Jason.” Alfred slides a steaming cup of earl gray in front of him. “If you would be so kind as to tell me what is going on and why the young masters are so upset?”

Jason winces at the disapproving tone in Alfred’s voice. “Dick and I had a bit of a fight.”

“I see.”

“Hey Alfred,” Tim pipes up. “You were around when Dick and Kori were dating. What do you know about why they broke up?”

If Alfred is surprised at the question, he doesn’t show it. “I’m afraid I actually know very little, Masters Bruce and Richard were not on speaking terms at the time. It did seem rather out of the blue, Miss Koriand’r had been such a comfort to him in those first few months after your passing Master Jason. But you’ll have to ask Master Dick himself if you want to know more.”

“I just find it so hard to believe,” Tim sighed. 

“He admitted it himself, Drake. Obviously Grayson is not the person we believed him to be.” Damian’s voice wobbles slightly as he speaks.

“That’s fine. We don’t need him anyways,” Jason declares, pointedly ignoring the disappointed look in Alfred’s eyes.

  
  
  


Surprisingly, Barbara is the first to break.

It’s been two weeks since the fight in the cave, and the rest of the family hasn’t spoken to Dick since. Which is fine by Jason. Tim and Damian had both gotten messages from the eldest apologizing for the way he’d spoken to them, but neither had responded to him. Even Steph and Cass had cut off communication in a show of solidarity to Babs. 

“Will you please just go check on him?” Barbara pleads. 

“How can you be okay with what he did to you?” Jason argues as he grapples to a neighbouring rooftop. “How can you possibly have forgiven him for cheating on you?”

“Look, I was angry at him for a long time, and I know I’ll never be able to fully trust him again. And yeah, it hurts knowing that he’d done it before with Kori, that I wasn’t the first person he’d cheated on. But he’s apologized for what he did, and I believe he does truly regret his actions,” Barbara explains. “He’s still my friend, and I’m worried about him. He hasn’t gone on patrol the last two nights, and he’s disabled every single one of the cameras that Bruce has in his apartment.”

“He probably just doesn’t want us to see whatever whore he’s sleeping with this week,” Jason mutters under his breath. 

“Jason, all I’m asking you to do is make sure he isn’t bleeding out in a back alley somewhere. And you’re going to do it, unless you want that footage of your highschool production of Death of a Salesman to see the light of day.”

Jason grumbles, but he knows that Barbara does not make idle threats, so he changes his course to head back to his ride. It’s a long drive to Bludhaven after all. 

Dick’s apartment is suspiciously tidy when Jason slips through the window. Dick’s gotten better in recent years, but he’s never exactly been a clean freak. 

Dick is asleep in his bed, and he doesn’t wake when Jason sneaks into the bedroom. Probably something to do with the bottle of sleeping pills that Jason can see on the nightstand.

He should just send confirmation to Barbara that Grayson is in fact alive, and leave as soon as possible, but he finds himself staring at the sleeping man instead. What did Artemis see in him? Sure, Dick’s unfairly attractive, but that’s not enough to make up for his obnoxious and conceited personality. 

Dick interrupts his observations with a small whimper, his face folding into a frown in his sleep. 

“No, don’t,” Dick slurs. He’s obviously having a nightmare. Jason is no stranger to those, and feels a brief twinge of sympathy despite the anger he still holds for the other man. 

Jason’s not stupid enough to try to wake the other, he knows he’s likely to get decked if Dick is caught off guard. He’s not expecting Dick to startle himself awake, sitting up with a cut-off sob and immediately launching himself off the bed and stumbling to the bathroom, where Jason can hear the sounds of vomiting. 

Jason backtracks to the kitchen and fills a glass with water before entering the bathroom. Dick is no longer throwing up, and has managed to wedge himself into the small space between the bathtub and toilet. He’s only wearing a pair of boxers, and he’s shivering violently, knees drawn up to his chest.

Jason hands him the glass of water wordlessly, and pointedly doesn’t comment on the way Dick’s hand trembles as he reaches out to take the cup. 

“You here to yell at me again?” Dick asks quietly after a couple sips of water. 

“No.” Jason moves to sit on the edge of the bathtub.

They sit in silence for a few minutes before Dick speaks again. “I’ve accepted that what happened with Mirage and Tarantula was my fault, but I didn’t sleep with Artemis.”

Jason really didn’t intend to start yelling. 

“You’ve _accepted_?” He sneers. “Oh please, there’s no one to blame but yourself.”

“I know.” Dick’s voice is small and muffled as he tucks his face into his knees. “I know it’s my fault, I just- I didn’t mean to.”

“Didn’t mean to? Oh sure, you just accidentally fell into bed with them.”

Dick is crying now. “I should’ve known.”

“What? Of course you should’ve known that sleeping with someone other than your girlfriend was wrong! What the fuck is wrong with you?” Jason needs to leave before he punches him or something. 

Dick starts sobbing. “You were right. I am just a horny slut who only cares about getting off. I knew something felt off, but I ignored it. I didn’t want to think, I just wanted to fuck my girlfriend.”

Wait, what? 

“What are you talking about?”

“When I slept with Mirage,” Dick explains between sobs. “I should’ve known. They all said I should’ve known.”

Jason is starting to get a sinking feeling, dread settling heavily in the pit of his stomach. Something isn’t quite adding up, and he has a horrifying suspicion that he knows which piece he’s missing.

“Should have known what?” He asks tentatively.

Dick shakes his head and doesn’t answer. Jason slides off the tub so that he can kneel in front of Dick, reaching out to touch Dicks knee. Dick flinches violently, his head jerking up, allowing Jason to see the fear and panic in his teary eyes.

“Don’t,” Dick stutters out. “Don’t touch me.” 

Jason removes his hand. “What were you supposed to know?”

Dick takes several shaky breaths. “I think you should go.”

Jason doesn’t move. He has to know. “Did you- did you think that she was Kori?”

Dick’s face crumples again and he nods, whimpering softly. “Mirage was a shapeshifter.”

Oh God. They’re all such idiots. Jason’s gonna throw up. “Dick, that’s not… that’s not your fault.”

“It is, I should’ve known it wasn’t Kori. And I _did_ know that something was off, I just didn’t care.”

Dick starts sobbing again, little hiccupy breaths that echo off the tile. Jason frowns, Dick’s too worked up, too caught up in the remnants of his nightmare to have this talk properly.

“Okay, Dick?” Jason tries to keep his voice soft, trying to project a calm he doesn’t feel. “Why don’t we head over to the couch? I’ll make some tea. Can I touch you?”

Dick hesitates for a long time before he nods, and Jason makes sure to move slowly as he reaches his hand out to Dick’s shoulder. Slowly and with Jason’s help, Dick extracts himself from the tiny space he had wedged himself into. 

“That’s it, there you go,” Jason praises. “Why don’t you get dressed and cleaned up while I start the kettle?” 

He moves to the kitchen, giving Dick the illusion of privacy, but he doesn’t touch the kettle, instead listening to see if Dick will try to make a run for it through the window. 

God, he should have known that morally righteous Dick Grayson wouldn’t cheat. He feels sick when he thinks of the vicious words he had spewed at the older man. Words that Dick obviously believed about himself, if the conversation in the bathroom was any indication. He’d just been so angry.

Dick comes out after five minutes, now dressed in track pants and a t-shirt. He clearly took the time to try to compose himself, his breathing still uneven, but no longer openly crying. 

Jason finally turns on the kettle, and rummages through the cupboards to find the tea. “Does Alfred know you’re drinking Tetley like a heathen?”

“What Alfred doesn’t know won’t hurt him.” Dick’s voice is hoarse and scratchy from all the crying.

“Alfred knows everything.”

Jason busies himself getting the tea steeping. “The place looks nice. I don’t think I’ve ever seen it this clean.”

“Couldn’t sleep.”

And that’s something that Jason understands all too well. He’s stayed awake countless nights, trying to keep busy to push away the nightmares that claw at him. 

“Are you ready to talk?” Jason watches as Dick adds an unholy amount of sugar to his tea. 

“No, but I have a feeling I’m not going to get much of a choice.” 

“Okay, fine, I’ll start then. I’m sorry for what I said to you in the cave. You’re _not_ any of those things I said, I was just angry and lashing out.”

Dick shrugs, a thin veneer of apathy to hide how close he is to breaking down again. “It’s fine, I’m used to it by now. But I really didn’t have sex with Artemis, I wish you would believe me.” 

Jason is aghast. “Dick, no, it’s not fine. I was way out of line, and I was wrong.”

Dick shrugs again. “You’re not the first person to call me a slut.”

Jason doesn’t even know how to respond. He recalls the derisive and scornful way Roy had told him how Dick had cheated on Kori. It’s not a hard leap to assume that he probably had some equally choice words for Dick when it happened. And it’s heartbreaking, but not surprising, that Dick would start to believe those things about himself after hearing them for so many years. 

“Why don’t you tell me what happened with Mirage?”

“It’s pretty much exactly what you think happened. I slept with someone who wasn’t my girlfriend and ruined one of the best relationships I’ve ever had.” 

Jason takes a sip of his tea. “You said she was a shapeshifter.”

“Yeah, she impersonated Kori, and I was too stupid and horny to realize. I didn’t even find out until she bragged about it in front of the whole team.”

Jason feels himself getting angry again, this time towards the shapeshifting bitch who hurt Dick. 

“It kinda messed me up for a while,” Dick continues. “I started doubting every decision I had to make. How was the team supposed to trust me when I couldn’t even trust my own instincts?”

“Dick, that wasn’t your fault,” Jason pleads. “Have you ever talked about this with anyone before now?”

Dick looks puzzled. “What’s there to talk about? It’s not exactly a secret. The entire Titans team was there when Mirage told me what we’d done. They called me a slut and asked who was better.”

Jason is going to kill Roy the next time he sees him. Between the conditioning from Bruce and the perceptions from his so-called friends and teammates, it’s no wonder that Dick has such a terrible sense of self-worth.

“Dick, that bitch raped you,” Jason says bluntly. 

Dick flinches. “No, I consented. I wanted it.”

“Yeah, you wanted it with Kori, not with Mirage. She took advantage of you.”

Dick doesn’t answer, he just stares into the mug in front of him, and Jason can see a shimmer of tears on his cheeks. Deep down, Dick probably knew what had happened to him, it was just easier to accept the blame so he didn’t have to think about the way he’d been violated, the way he’d had something precious and cherished twisted and defiled. Easier to be a villain than a victim.

“And Tarantula?” In for a penny, in for a pound. Even though Jason has a horrifying suspicion that the story with Tarantula is going to be fairly similar to the story with Mirage.

Dick takes a shuddery breath and a large sip of tea before answering. “Technically Babs broke up with me before I slept with Catalina, though Cat certainly gave the impression that we’d been sleeping together for a while.”

Jason frowns. “Why would you be with someone who ruined your relationship like that?”

“I don’t know how much you know about what happened with Blockbuster, but I wasn’t exactly in a great place mentally,” Dick admits. “I don’t actually really remember having sex with Cat. I think I said ‘no’? But I guess part of me must have wanted it cause I got hard and I came, so…” He trails off awkwardly. 

Jason can’t answer. If he opens his mouth, he’s either going to throw up or start screaming at Dick for being so willfully oblivious to what was done to him. They both know physical reactions are involuntary and mean nothing in terms of consent. 

“I was going to marry her,” Dick says distantly.

“Babs?”

Dick laughs, but it sounds hollow and empty. “No, Catalina.”

What the fuck? Exactly how messed up did Dick have to be that he was going to marry his rapist?

“After everything with Blockbuster, and… cheating on Barbara, I just couldn’t handle it. Like I said, I wasn’t exactly in a great place.”

Jason is at a loss. “That’s not your fault. You literally said ‘no’. That makes it rape. And don’t you dare give me that bullshit about secretly wanting it cause you got hard. You know that’s not how it works.”

Jason feels like such a piece of shit for what he’d said during that fight. He knows he’s not the most rational when he’s angry, but he’d taken such a vicious pleasure in knowing and flaunting that Bruce’s Golden Boy wasn’t the angel everyone thought he was. He hadn’t wanted to fill in the missing pieces, perfectly content with the flimsy image of Dick as a traitorous, two-timing asshole. 

Dick closes his eyes for a second, and when he opens them again he seems angry. “Jason, you don’t need to start lying to me now, you’ve certainly never had a problem telling me exactly what you think of me in the past.” 

Only this time Jason can see the anger and barbs for the fragile defense that they are, a safeguard to stop people from getting too close and seeing just how broken Dick really is. It’s one of his own personal favourites after all. He’s going to kill Bruce for putting Dick on that stupid pedestal, making the other feel like he has to be perfect at all times or he isn’t worthy, or whatever other stupid shit Bruce has conditioned him into believing. And when he’s done with Bruce, he’ll move on to Roy and the rest of the Titans for abandoning Dick when he obviously needed help, and then he’ll hunt down this Tarantula and Mirage for hurting Dick in the first place. 

But first he needs to help Dick get it through his dumb little brain that he’s not to blame for what happened, that these women who raped him are the ones at fault. 

Jason takes a fortifying sip of tea. “I’m sorry for what I said earlier, I was blinded by my jealousy and anger, and I didn’t have all the facts. But Dick, you’re not stupid. I know you know that what happened to you was rape. Stop lying to yourself.”

Dick looks away again, but Jason can see the tension in the line of his jaw. “It’s just sex. Worse things can, and have, happened to us every night on patrol. I _like_ sex, and it’s not like I didn’t get anything out of it.”

_Yeah, you got years of repressed trauma and a guilt complex_ , Jason thinks while trying not to roll his eyes. And people think he’s the stubborn one. 

“It’s not just sex,” Jason starts. He doesn’t know how to say this, Dick was always the one for emotional heartfelt speeches. “They hurt you. They took something that you enjoy and ruined it, used it against you. They violated you. _It’s not your fault_.”

Dick is crying again when he finally faces Jason again. “I just-,” he cuts off with a shaky breath. 

Jason waits for the older man to continue, to compose himself enough to finish his sentence. He tentatively reaches his hand out to place it over Dick’s, unsure if Dick will be receptive of his attempt at physical comfort, but Dick doesn’t flinch or pull his hand away.

“I just felt so dirty.” Dick’s voice is so quiet Jason almost didn’t hear him. “Like I’d never be clean again, like I was worthless. And it might not have been my choice, but it’s still my fault cause it was my own stupidity that got me there.”

“It’s not your fault, Dick.” Maybe if he says if a few hundred more times the idiot will start to believe it. “And you’re not stupid, and you’re not worthless. You’re smart, and charismatic, and you’re always striving to do better. And you’re Nightwing, protector of Bludhaven. And I know I don’t often show it, but I admire you, I have for a long time.”

“How am I supposed to protect others when I can’t even protect myself?”

Dick sounds so sad and defeated, and Jason feels his heart break. He’s not equipped for this. Jason is all for shoving his problems into a little box and hoping they just go away. He’s emotionally drained, and he hasn’t even been the one revealing years of trauma. He should have suggested something with a higher alcohol content than tea for this conversation.

Jason is struggling to think of something to say, when they’re interrupted by the sound of the window opening. They both freeze, then Dick jerks his hand out from under Jason’s, tea sloshing onto the table at the sudden motion.

It’s almost incredible watching Dick’s expression go from open and vulnerable to closed off and apathetic in the span of two seconds. If Jason hadn’t just seen the man crying and vomiting in the bathroom from a panic attack like twenty minutes ago, he would have believed that there was nothing wrong. The dissonance makes Jason uneasy. Just how frequently did Dick wear a mask, a performance to convince the others he was fine when he was anything but?

“Todd. Grayson.”

Oh great, what is the gremlin doing here?

“Oracle demands to know if you are too incapacitated to check in as she requested.”

Oh, whoops. “Tell Oracle we’re both fine, and she’d better not do anything drastic if she knows what’s good for her.”

“Tell her yourself,” Damian retorts, too busy glaring ferociously at Dick. “You can explain why you’re having tea and socializing with the adulterer.” 

Dick flinches, and Jason will rip this little punk limb from limb if he undoes all the non-existent progress that Jason had made with Dick tonight.

“Lay off,” Jason snaps, startling both Damian and Dick. 

Damian turns his scowl to Jason, before turning dramatically and opening the window sash again. “Are you coming, Todd?”

“Yeah, calm your shit. I’m coming.” Jason puts his mug in the sink and takes an extra few seconds to tidy the counter just to annoy Damian. 

He drops a hand to Dick’s shoulder. “I’ll see you tomorrow,” he says softly. He knows Dick will pick up on what he’s not saying. _This conversation isn’t over. Don’t you dare make a run for it to avoid having to confront your feelings_.

Dick grimaces slightly but nods. “Thank you, Jason.”

Jason squeezes his shoulder and then follows Damian out the window. And if he spends the entire drive back to Gotham daydreaming about all the ways he’s going he’s going to hurt Bruce, and Roy, and all the other people who made Dick feel worthless and cheap, that’s no one’s business but his own.

**Author's Note:**

> please let me know if you think I'm missing any tags/warnings
> 
> 100% not proof-read
> 
> Title from The Killer's Mr Brightside


End file.
